OK, now this is pretty crazy. According to Ben Badler of Baseball America, Japanese high school pitcher Tomohiro Anraku has logged a total of 22 innings and 391 pitches over a five-day span in “Spring Koshien,” the country’s top national high school invitational tournament. Seriously.
After throwing an eye-popping 232 pitches in a complete-game 13-inning victory on Tuesday, the 16-year-old sensation bounced back on three-days rest today and threw 159 pitches over nine innings as part of a 4-1 win. While Anraku touched 94 mph with his fastball on Tuesday, his velocity was understandably down a bit today. However, he still struck out eight and even reached 92 mph for his final pitch of the ballgame.
While this sounds flat-out crazy given how pitchers are protected these days, it’s not out of the ordinary for high school pitchers in Japan to have extreme workloads. When he was 17, Daisuke Matsuzaka infamously threw 250 pitches in a 17-inning complete game. Ryota Shimoishi, who started against Anraku on Tuesday, threw 219 pitches of his own.
And get this, Anraku might not be done. His team plays again on Monday while the semifinals are on Tuesday and the championship game is on Wednesday. He’s quickly emerging as one of the top high school pitchers in the world, so hopefully his right arm survives the week.
